


Pets in the Lab

by amtrak12



Series: Operation More Toltzmann [1]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 09:06:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7751599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I may have accidentally sort of adopted five cats.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pets in the Lab

**Author's Note:**

> I've started pulling random prompts off Tumblr for short fics since I'm moving so slowly on my other ideas. If you have something specific you want to see, hmu (tumblr user amtrak12). I might be able to write it :)

Patty walked past the door to Holtzmann's experimental lab on her way to her own private library. Despite Holtzmann's best efforts, the entire second floor did _not_ belong to her. Walls had already been in place to divide it into rooms, so Holtzmann had been given two of them for her experiments while the other two had been split between Patty's books and a cozy rec room set up for the group.

The game plan was to grab the vaudeville book she'd found last week and settle back in Holtz's lab for some afternoon reading, but on the way to library, Patty heard the distinct sounds of wiggling cardboard.

Patty paused in the hallway and frowned. There wasn't any cardboard in the lab. Cardboard had been declared not sturdy enough, and if anything needed to be boxed, it was placed in wooden crates.

Curious, Patty backtracked and stuck her head inside.

"Hey, Holtzy."

"Hmm?" Holtzmann shot up from where she'd been leaning over something on the floor. If her foot hadn't not-too-subtly slid that something under the lab table, then the feigned innocence on her face would have given her away.

"Whatchu got there?"

"Uh, nothing," Holtzmann said. She nervously backed away when Patty entered the room. "Just some experiments. They're not test subjects. I'm keeping them all alive."

Patty stopped at the corner of the lab table where Holtzmann had been standing initially. Though, now the girl was backed all the way against the hanging display of welding tools on the wall.

"What are you experimenting on?" Patty looked down under the table. Her eyes widened.

There was indeed a cardboard box under the table. A cardboard box lined with someone's shirt and a mini-hoard of squirming, stumbling kittens.

Whoa.

"I'm uh -- I'm not experimenting on them," Holtzmann said. "Except for how much food to give them. They're just cats. Still living."

Patty dragged her stare back up to her girlfriend. Blinked.

Holtzmann fidgeted. "I may have accidentally, sort of, adopted five cats."

Slowly, Patty nodded. "Uh huh, I can see that." She carefully sank down to the floor beside the box. "Where did you even find them?"

The five kittens were mostly black with varying white spots except for this lone grey piece of fluff. Patty picked that one up first. It was one of the softest things she'd ever seen.

"Someone left them outside the door last night." Holtzmann got down on the floor with her. "I think they mistook this as a church."

The grey kitten hunkered down in Patty's lap and sniffed at her hand. The poor babies were still terrified from being abandoned. They looked young too. Patty hoped they were actually old enough to be away from their mother.

"I don't think people usually abandon kittens at churches," she said. "Maybe they mistook this for an actual fire house."

Holtzmann quirked an eyebrow. "Do people abandon kittens at fire houses?"

Patty thought and realized she couldn't actually pull up any examples of it. "Don't they?"

Holtz shrugged and picked up the cat trying to free itself off the edge of the box. "I call this one Frogger."

She held it up for Patty to see. This black kitten had white markings around its back two paws and all down its chin, though its belly was still black.

"Is there something about it that makes it a Frogger?" she asked.

"I liked the game when I was a kid."

"Oh, I see."

Boy, these kittens sure were cute. That grey one had figured out how to climb up her leg to see back into the box. One of the kittens still inside spotted it and made a clumsy leap up the box's side, but slipped right back down.

"You know you just turned us all into crazy cat ladies, right?" Patty asked. That will certainly add to the media stories about them.

"You mean, Abby will let us keep them?"

"Well, she ain't making us give them away." Patty plucked the clumsy leaper out and set it on her lap next to its sibling. Its fur was average length for a cat's but it was still incredibly soft. There was something soothing about feeling these creatures tiny, little feet patter their way across her legs.

"You know she's not really allergic to cats," Patty continued. "I overheard her say that to Kevin back when y'all interviewed him, but she walked into that ghost-infested apartment last week without any problems." The owner of that apartment had had two cats, both mean too. Nothing like these sweet little things.

"Yeah, but she doesn't like pets."

Okay, that one was news. Though, it was news that didn't make much sense.

"Then, how come Erin's been leaving out printouts of all those rescue dogs?"

"She said the pictures were cute."

Patty side-eyed Holtzmann. "You think she just wants them for decoration?"

"Yeah," Holtzmann said, and then frowned when she looked at Patty. "Nooo?"

Patty laughed. "No, that girl wants a dog. Real bad."

"Ohhh, right. Well, we beat her to the punch then, didn't we Frogger?" Holtzmann held the kitten up in front of her face. Her wide, silly grin broke into a distorted, stuck-out tongue face before she grinned again and nuzzled the cat.

Patty grinned at her girlfriend's antics. Then, turned her attention back to her own set of kittens.

"And what am I gonna name you?" she asked the grey, fluffy one.

"Sparky."

"Baby, I am not naming a cat Sparky."


End file.
